As well known by those in the art offshore drilling rigs generally use cutting boxes stacked on deck to collect and store drill cuttings/fluids being removed from the well bore. After passing through shale shaker screens (which are used to remove excess drilling fluids and mud from the cuttings) said cuttings are usually dropped into a cuttings trough of the drilling rig. As said cuttings troughs have limited capacity they must, more of less continuously, be removed therefrom, lest they become filled and drilling must stop for having no place to put more cuttings coming from the earth bore. Consequently drill cuttings are usually move from the cuttings trough of drilling rigs by conveyors, pumps or vacuum systems to cuttings boxes, where they are stored until they can be properly disposed off. The process for filling the cuttings boxes is labor intensive and requires significant utilization of the drilling rig crane to move the boxes around on deck and transferring each box to and from means for transportation elsewhere for disposal.
The current process requires the cuttings boxes to be moved by crane into the filling position below a cuttings conveyance outlet or connected to vacuum system. Extensive labor is necessary to manually open the cuttings box lid and install the vacuum lid which seals that cuttings box interior for vacuuming/filling, and then to remove the vacuum lid after the cuttings box is filled with cuttings, and close the lid. The space required for the current system is significant in relation the disclosed invention, thus requiring cuttings boxes to be removed shortly after filling, to make room for an empty cuttings box. On all but wells where drilling is progressing slowly the crane and several personnel are kept busy moving cuttings boxes in and out. Many of the cuttings boxes are partially filled due to this labor intensive process. In most cases, a considerable amount of expensive drilling mud, which could be reused, is disposed of along with the drill cuttings using current systems. The resulting waste product is therefore more costly to transport due to the higher volumes, thus adding to the disposal cost. And the cost to treat oily laden cuttings is much higher.